The San'in coast itinerary: three slow days on the line the Shinkansen forgot

The Shinkansen has a map, and the map has an underside. On the Sea of Japan side of western Honshu, the bullet train never came: the coast was too thin, the towns too quiet to justify the tunnels. What runs instead is the San'in Main Line (San'in-honsen, 山陰本線), single-track for long stretches, the water on your right for hours at a time. You buy the tickets one leg at a time, watch the conductor punch them by hand, and let three days pass at the speed of a coast that was never asked to hurry.

Day one, Matsue, the city built on water

Start in Matsue, a castle town threaded with canals and hemmed by the wide brackish lake of Shinji-ko (宍道湖). The keep, Matsue-jo (松江城), is one of only twelve original wooden castles left standing in Japan and one of five ranked National Treasure; it was finished in 1611 and never burned or fell. Admission runs about 680 yen for adults, and the inner stairs are steep enough that a knotted rope hangs down the well to haul yourself up between floors. From the top the town flattens into grey tile and the lake fills the western sky.

Down at water level, the Horikawa Meguri (堀川めぐり) sightseeing boat loops the old moat in roughly fifty minutes for about 1,600 yen, and four times on the circuit the canopy roof winches down flat so the boat can slide under a low stone bridge, passengers folding forward with it. At dusk the lake turns the colour of weak tea and the low island of Yomegashima (嫁ヶ島) sits black against it; locals will tell you the sunset here is reason enough to stay the night rather than pass through. Order the shijimi (しじみ), the tiny freshwater clams the lake is farmed for, simmered in miso.

Day two, Izumo, older than the rest

West of Matsue is Izumo Taisha (出雲大社), a shrine so old that the documents arguing over its founding are themselves ancient. The quickest way in is not the JR line but the Ichibata Electric Railway (Ichibata Dentetsu, 一畑電車), a two-car interurban that rattles from Matsue-shinjiko-onsen along the lake's north shore, changing at Kawato (川跡) for the branch to Izumo-taisha-mae; the run takes about an hour and costs roughly 820 yen. Here you clap four times, not the usual two: the full form is two bows, four claps, one bow. Over the Kaguraden hall hangs a shimenawa rope thick as a felled tree, some thirteen metres long and several tonnes of twisted rice straw.

In October, the month the rest of Japan calls kannazuki (神無月), the month without gods, Izumo alone calls it kamiarizuki (神在月), the month with them. The story holds that every deity in the country travels here to confer, coming ashore down the coast at Inasa-no-hama (稲佐の浜), a beach a short walk west where a single rock stack stands offshore. Before the shrine, eat: Izumo soba is served as warigo (割子), three stacked lacquer discs of buckwheat noodles you dress and pour from the top down, dark and firm because the whole grain is milled in.

Day three, Tottori, where sand meets surf

Carry the line east to the Tottori sand dunes, Tottori sakyu (鳥取砂丘), a two-kilometre run of wind-built ridges that falls straight into the sea. From Tottori Station the Kirinjishi loop bus reaches the dunes in about twenty minutes; a day pass is around 600 yen. They are not a true desert, only sediment carried down the Sendai river and heaped back ashore by current and wind, but the scale argues otherwise. A tethered camel will carry you a short circuit for about 1,500 yen, or 600 yen if you only want the photograph.

Climb the tallest ridge, the umanose or horse's back, and the whole basin opens: a small blue pond pooled in a low spot after rain, the grey line of the Sea of Japan beyond, and the wind quietly erasing the last person's footprints as you watch. The Sand Museum (Suna no Bijutsukan, 砂の美術館) beside the dunes carves a new country's theme in packed sand each year and charges about 800 yen to see it before the sculptures are returned to loose grain.

山陰は、急がない人のための海岸線です。

Doing it slowly, and doing it right

Come in from either end. From the Kansai side, the Super Hakuto (スーパーはくと) limited express runs from Kyoto and Osaka down to Tottori in about two and a half hours; from the south, the Yakumo (やくも) climbs over the mountains from Okayama on the Shinkansen trunk into Matsue and Izumo-shi in roughly the same time. Between those anchor cities the local San'in Main Line trains are the whole point and the whole risk: they are timed for schoolchildren and pensioners, not for connections, and on the thinner stretches they can run only once every one or two hours.

The single mistake that ruins this trip is treating it like the Shinkansen, turning up at a rural platform expecting the next train soon. Photograph the timetable on the wall before you leave each station, and plan the afternoon around the departure rather than the arrival. October rewards you with kamiarizuki and dry light; deep winter brings grey squalls off the sea and thinned timetables. Either way the trade is the same. The bullet train skipped this coast, and in skipping it, left it whole.